theatlantic | So why not punish them now?
If CIA officers did abhorrent things that even their waterboarding
colleagues managed to avoid, exceeding the orders and legal strictures
they were given, why haven't they been prosecuted for torture as a duly
ratified treaty compels the U.S. to do? Why hasn't Brennan ever remedied
the failure to hold those men accountable? Why has he allowed people
even he regards as criminals to remain at the CIA?
The reason is that he does not believe the rule of law should apply to the CIA.
Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden, and Brennan make a big show of invoking
the legal cover given by John Yoo and others, as if they respect the
rule of law. But beneath the posturing, they oppose jailing CIA officers
no matter what, perhaps because those officers know things that could put them in prison. Among torturers, there can be only one code: Stop Snitchin'. Do you think that I exaggerate?
As The Week notes, the only person in jail over CIA torture is a man who tried to expose it.
In the end, Andrew Sullivan comes close to the mark.
"There is no organization in the US government that exercises the kind
of power the CIA does–over the presidency, Congress, and the media," he
writes. "It is unimaginable that any other agency in government could
commit war crimes, torture innocents, murder people, wreck this
country’s moral standing… and yet escape any consequences... There is no
other government agency that launches elaborate public relations
campaigns to discredit and undermine its Senate oversight committee.
There is no other organization whose head can tell blatant lies about
spying on its overseers and receive the president’s wholehearted
support. There is no other agency where you can murder someone already
in your captivity and get away with it."
The head of the CIA can go on national television, acknowledge that
some CIA officers tortured using "abhorrent" tactics, admit that those
tactics went beyond their orders and the law, note that they were never
held accountable... and then do nothing more. This is a man
President Obama still wants to head the intelligence agency, perhaps
because while Brennan may not know "where all the bodies are buried," he
knows where they were droned to death on sometimes illegal Obama
orders.
Lawlessness begets lawlessness begets lawlessness.
